• Everyone’s excited that our Awesome Hippie Pope is saying that evolution and the Big Bang Theory are not at odds with religion. I’m pretty sure that this has been Catholic doctrine for at least the last two Popes but whatever, it’s fun to see the Vatican remind American flat-earthers that they’re still getting it wrong.

• Not good news per se but interesting: Did you know there’s a copyright infringement suit over the Robin Thicke/Pharrell Williams song “Blurred Lines”? And the plaintiff is the family of Marvin Gaye, who say Thicke and Pharrell borrowed from Gaye’s hit “Got To Give It Up”? There is, they are, and the suit has cleared its first major hurdle.

Copyright law is an interesting, convoluted thing. I was always amazed that Kenny Loggins never sued Garth Brooks over Brooks’ “Standing Outside The Fire,” which is basically Loggins’ “Conviction Of The Heart” set in a different key with some twang added. It was a blatant, obvious rip-off, in my book.

• Former Marine Eric Malloy of Nashville can now afford to get his canine buddy Cash, who was his partner in Afghanistan, needed surgery, thanks to a GoFundMe campaign which raised over $3,000 in less than an hour. Read the full story here.

I think Gaye’s family has a point. The first time I heard the opening riff of Blurred Lines on one of Cincinnati’s Adult Contemporary radio stations my first thought was, “Is Q102 playing 80’s R&B now?”

Actually, the Catholic Church has accepted evolution at least since 1950 — though I did see one comment that Benedict might have hedged a bit in the direction of ‘Intelligent Design.’ But then Catholicism has never fallen into the trap of “Biblical Literalism.’

(Challenge for the Reader — what is your favorite example of this absurdity? Mine is the “March of the Living Dead’ through Jerusalem in Matthew 28:50-52. And as I write this, I see the believers searching desperately to find their own Bibles — while the atheists just reach to the shelf over the computer. Check this one out — and then ask you if somebody met — the equivalent — Washington, Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin, and Jefferson strolling through Washington — still dressed in their ‘grave rags,’ I think it would have entered into the History Books a little, No?)

Right, that’s what I said. And every successive Pope has to keep reminding people of this.

I’ve actually met this new thing called the “Evangelical Catholic.” Sorta like a blending of hands-in-the-air, praise-and-worship-band-playing, mega-church style Evangelical Christianity with Latin-and-incense Catholicism. Kinda weird, cuz I remember when those two groups of people despised each other.

The really amazing culture shift with Tim Cook’s announcement: absolutely nobody cared. Even conservatives seem to have shrugged and gone on with their lives.

Obviously, it’s still valuable and important for people to be publicly gay, but it makes me happy every time someone comes out and no one seems to be bothered by it.

Probably my favorite “coming out” story of recent years was when the press finally reported that Jim Parsons (of “The Big Bang Theory”) was gay and Parsons wondered why it took them so long, because he’d been bringing his boyfriend to industry events for years and introducing him as such, so he had no idea that he was still considered to be “in” as far as the press was concerned.

Christie spent 100 days in the last year out of New Jersey, says the link.

Well, Nj, we Nutmeggers don’t want him blowharding in CT , where he’s been all too often in service to Teabagger Tom Foley. But our local TV news has been digging thru that flab to fin d and fluff Christie’s, uh, ambitions.

At some point, I think Christie is practicing for his Wingnut Welfare Carnival. He already has developed a sense of how to leave when he’s wearing out his welcome.